We looked at the first portion of Chapter 2 yesterday, which speaks of the adulteries committed by the Lord's unfaithful wife Israel, and today we will be studying the second half of the first portion. The Lord says of His wayward spouse: "She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.'" (Hosea 2:5b) She credits her false gods with supplying her needs when all along it has been the Lord---and only the Lord---who has ever done anything for her.
Because she does not acknowledge Him and insists on going her own way, He is going to make her way difficult. "Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.' She has not acknowledged that I was the One who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold---which they used for Baal." (Hosea 2:6-8)
She has forsaken Him in favor of others; therefore He will take His protection and provision away. When He does this, she will call to her lovers (her false gods) and they will not answer. They will not answer because they cannot answer---they do not exist. The Lord is the only one who has ever heard her prayers and supplied her needs, yet she took the blessings He gave her and served other gods with them.
Because she has not appreciated His efforts on her behalf, and because she has offered His blessings to idols, He will cause her to suffer deprivations and humiliations. "Therefore I will take away My grain when it ripens, and My new wine when it is ready. I will take back My wool and My linen, intended to cover her naked body. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of My hands." (Hosea 2:9-10)
The nations whose heathen gods she has served will observe and be shocked at how the Lord allows her to fall into the hands of the enemy. Up until now the Lord has not allowed Israel to fall to any invader. It is known by all the other nations that He brought her out of Egypt and uprooted the tribes of the promised land and planted her in their place. It is known that He has defended her from all who hate her. But He is going to allow her to be plundered and carried away captive and when that happens the nations will hear about and observe her downfall, her humiliation, and the lack of help she receives from the idols to which she bowed.
The Lord continues, "'I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days---all her appointed festivals. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but Me she forgot,' declares the Lord." (Hosea 2:11-13)
We've talked before about the way some people have to hit rock bottom before they will look up to the Lord. He is going to allow Israel to hit rock bottom and, when she does, she will be ready to listen to what He has to say. Just as the Lord will later instruct Hosea to take back the wife who has left him, the Lord is going to take Israel back. He is going to woo her with His love and she will respond appropriately. Forsaken by the gods to whom she prostituted herself, she will turn once again to her first love---to the only God. His purpose in separating the people from the land (symbolically separating them from His presence) is for reconciliation.
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